1. Thanks everyone for their input. It was very entertaining. I was impressed that much of the information posted in the end was fairly accurate. With a few exceptions. 2. If you stated that you wished Coach Cluess well and wanted the best for him, then simultaneously asked Iona to stick it to St. John's, you were contradicting yourself. Let's admit, ALL of us were hoping this would fall through. That probably wasn't the best outcome for our coach. Happy he is back, but I feel for him. Trying not to over-interpret, but the tone of his statement was one of disappointment. Coach - you earned and deserved that job. Sorry it didn't work out. 3. Yes, the big winner in this could well be the Iona basketball program. Just having Coach back is a home run. Hopefully this helps recruiting. Would be nice if we had a plan in place to improve facilities. Agree with statements on the other thread that this might be a good time to kick in a few bucks to the Goal Club. 4. Can't wait for Novemeber. Go Gaels!
WE HAVE A COACH!
Last Edit: Apr 20, 2019 11:41:02 GMT -5 by gregcrow
1. Thanks everyone for their input. It was very entertaining. I was impressed that much of the information posted in the end was fairly accurate. With a few exceptions. 2. If you stated that you wished Coach Cluess well and wanted the best for him, then simultaneously asked Iona to stick it to St. John's, you were contradicting yourself. Let's admit, ALL of us were hoping this would fall through. That probably wasn't the best outcome for our coach. Happy he is back, but I feel for him. Trying not to over-interpret, but the tone of his statement was one of disappointment. Coach - you earned and deserved that job. Sorry it didn't work out. 3. Yes, the big winner in this could well be the Iona basketball program. Just having Coach back is a home run. Hopefully this helps recruiting. Would be nice if we had a plan in place to improve facilities. Agree with statements on the other thread that this might be a good time to kick in a few bucks to the Goal Club. 4. Can't wait for Novemeber. Go Gaels!
WE HAVE A COACH!
Good take Greg. I can’t predict what effect this will have on our program but between our performance against North Carolina.all the positive things said regarding our coach and the 4 peat.i am pretty certain we will benefit greatly moving forward,not that we will be signing Mc Donald all Americans but we should be getting looks from higher level recruits that we might not have in the past.nothing negative will come from the last week.
1. Thanks everyone for their input. It was very entertaining. I was impressed that much of the information posted in the end was fairly accurate. With a few exceptions. 2. If you stated that you wished Coach Cluess well and wanted the best for him, then simultaneously asked Iona to stick it to St. John's, you were contradicting yourself. Let's admit, ALL of us were hoping this would fall through. That probably wasn't the best outcome for our coach. Happy he is back, but I feel for him. Trying not to over-interpret, but the tone of his statement was one of disappointment. Coach - you earned and deserved that job. Sorry it didn't work out. 3. Yes, the big winner in this could well be the Iona basketball program. Just having Coach back is a home run. Hopefully this helps recruiting. Would be nice if we had a plan in place to improve facilities. Agree with statements on the other thread that this might be a good time to kick in a few bucks to the Goal Club. 4. Can't wait for Novemeber. Go Gaels!
WE HAVE A COACH!
I respectfully disagree with your point # 2.
Iona and Coach Cluess have a contract in place, or so I believe. That contract has a buy-out clause to, amongst other reasons, protect Iona's investment in the basketball program. An example of that investment is, as I understand from the various postings here, the fact that Coach Cluess is paid way above the MAAC scale - maybe even 100% above it. I see no contradiction in Iona insisting on honoring the contract while wishing Coach Cluess the best in whatever the outcome. St. John's just flushed $8 million over 4 years of Chris Mullin, so finances were not a huge issue here.
Coach Cluess was willing! Iona was willing! St. John's was not - at least when it came to Coach Cluess.
Arkansas was on the hook for $3 million to Anderson. St. John's evidently bailed them out. St. John's got their man, and in the case of Iona - "WE HAVE A COACH!"
Wish the Board had similar protections in place to protect us from the other NY area predator - aptly nicknamed The Pirates.
1. Thanks everyone for their input. It was very entertaining. I was impressed that much of the information posted in the end was fairly accurate. With a few exceptions. 2. If you stated that you wished Coach Cluess well and wanted the best for him, then simultaneously asked Iona to stick it to St. John's, you were contradicting yourself. Let's admit, ALL of us were hoping this would fall through. That probably wasn't the best outcome for our coach. Happy he is back, but I feel for him. Trying not to over-interpret, but the tone of his statement was one of disappointment. Coach - you earned and deserved that job. Sorry it didn't work out. 3. Yes, the big winner in this could well be the Iona basketball program. Just having Coach back is a home run. Hopefully this helps recruiting. Would be nice if we had a plan in place to improve facilities. Agree with statements on the other thread that this might be a good time to kick in a few bucks to the Goal Club. 4. Can't wait for Novemeber. Go Gaels!
WE HAVE A COACH!
I respectfully disagree with your point # 2.
Iona and Coach Cluess have a contract in place, or so I believe. That contract has a buy-out clause to, amongst other reasons, protect Iona's investment in the basketball program. An example of that investment is, as I understand from the various postings here, the fact that Coach Cluess is paid way above the MAAC scale - maybe even 100% above it. I see no contradiction in Iona insisting on honoring the contract while wishing Coach Cluess the best in whatever the outcome. St. John's just flushed $8 million over 4 years of Chris Mullin, so finances were not a huge issue here.
Coach Cluess was willing! Iona was willing! St. John's was not - at least when it came to Coach Cluess.
Arkansas was on the hook for $3 million to Anderson. St. John's evidently bailed them out. St. John's got their man, and in the case of Iona - "WE HAVE A COACH!"
Wish the Board had similar protections in place to protect us from the other NY area predator - aptly nicknamed The Pirates.
Plus the fact Repole said he is willing to donate 10M to the hoops program.
I saw this was addressed in the recruiting thread but figured I would post it here. Regarding SHU, I can’t speak for coach Cluess but I don’t believe he was ever seriously interested in that position even though his name was rumored to be in the running if Willard would have left. Maybe that changes next year once Nyre goes to SHU but otherwise I don’t think coach Cluess is enamored with the idea of coaching at SHU.
I saw this was addressed in the recruiting thread but figured I would post it here. Regarding SHU, I can’t speak for coach Cluess but I don’t believe he was ever seriously interested in that position even though his name was rumored to be in the running if Willard would have left. Maybe that changes next year once Nyre goes to SHU but otherwise I don’t think coach Cluess is enamored with the idea of coaching at SHU.
I mentioned Seton Hall. The point was not that Cluess would be interested, but rather as far as recruiting is concerned whether or not recruits in the future would view Cluess as a lifer at Iona, after not getting the SJU job and how big of a impact that would have. Recruiting is a dirty game, and I know for a fact that MAAC programs that recruit similar AAU programs are already saying "You never know, if SHU opens up next year, they may very well go after Cluess".
1. Thanks everyone for their input. It was very entertaining. I was impressed that much of the information posted in the end was fairly accurate. With a few exceptions. 2. If you stated that you wished Coach Cluess well and wanted the best for him, then simultaneously asked Iona to stick it to St. John's, you were contradicting yourself. Let's admit, ALL of us were hoping this would fall through. That probably wasn't the best outcome for our coach. Happy he is back, but I feel for him. Trying not to over-interpret, but the tone of his statement was one of disappointment. Coach - you earned and deserved that job. Sorry it didn't work out. 3. Yes, the big winner in this could well be the Iona basketball program. Just having Coach back is a home run. Hopefully this helps recruiting. Would be nice if we had a plan in place to improve facilities. Agree with statements on the other thread that this might be a good time to kick in a few bucks to the Goal Club. 4. Can't wait for Novemeber. Go Gaels!
WE HAVE A COACH!
I respectfully disagree with your point # 2.
Iona and Coach Cluess have a contract in place, or so I believe. That contract has a buy-out clause to, amongst other reasons, protect Iona's investment in the basketball program. An example of that investment is, as I understand from the various postings here, the fact that Coach Cluess is paid way above the MAAC scale - maybe even 100% above it. I see no contradiction in Iona insisting on honoring the contract while wishing Coach Cluess the best in whatever the outcome. St. John's just flushed $8 million over 4 years of Chris Mullin, so finances were not a huge issue here.
Coach Cluess was willing! Iona was willing! St. John's was not - at least when it came to Coach Cluess.
Arkansas was on the hook for $3 million to Anderson. St. John's evidently bailed them out. St. John's got their man, and in the case of Iona - "WE HAVE A COACH!"
Wish the Board had similar protections in place to protect us from the other NY area predator - aptly nicknamed The Pirates.
Understand what you are saying and in the end I don't believe the buyout had anything to do with him not getting the job. Having said that, these things are negotiated all the time. It's not like Cluess puts the school through this every year. My point is if giving St. John's a little break on the buyout would have gotten him the job, I would not have objected.
Iona and Coach Cluess have a contract in place, or so I believe. That contract has a buy-out clause to, amongst other reasons, protect Iona's investment in the basketball program. An example of that investment is, as I understand from the various postings here, the fact that Coach Cluess is paid way above the MAAC scale - maybe even 100% above it. I see no contradiction in Iona insisting on honoring the contract while wishing Coach Cluess the best in whatever the outcome. St. John's just flushed $8 million over 4 years of Chris Mullin, so finances were not a huge issue here.
Coach Cluess was willing! Iona was willing! St. John's was not - at least when it came to Coach Cluess.
Arkansas was on the hook for $3 million to Anderson. St. John's evidently bailed them out. St. John's got their man, and in the case of Iona - "WE HAVE A COACH!"
Wish the Board had similar protections in place to protect us from the other NY area predator - aptly nicknamed The Pirates.
Understand what you are saying and in the end I don't believe the buyout had anything to do with him not getting the job. Having said that, these things are negotiated all the time. It's not like Cluess puts the school through this every year. My point is if giving St. John's a little break on the buyout would have gotten him the job, I would not have objected.
I wished Tim well and was happy for him. I was adamant about SJ's paying the buy out for two reasons: 1) they had/have the money to pay it: 2) I wasn't going to negotiate against Iona openly on a message board. If Iona were to have been approached and compromised and accepted a lower buy out to facilitate the whole thing, I would've been fine provided that it was a reasonable result.
Last Edit: Apr 21, 2019 13:38:02 GMT -5 by hawaii bill
Thankful for Daily Dose, Iona does not get much media attention, and once we lost our radio team we were left with very little coverage, but Daily Dose really gives Iona some great publicity and this is just another example. Although I have to admit I wasn’t thrilled with him pushing Cluess for St. John’s but I understood!